Harry Potter and the Desert of Snow
by Steel Drums and Island Dances
Summary: Harry always knew it was impossible to know the true extent of Voldemort's powers. But he does know that their expansion means the end of both the Wizarding and Muggle world. And nobody could have ever predicted this. HBP Rewrite.


Hello readers! I'm thrilled that you decided to stop by and read my crap, especially since it's my birthday! I'm honored, just honored, darlings! You all taste of glitter and rock and roll! Here's a little challenge for you TRUE sweets who review: can you guess my age from my writing? So please review… it's my birthday, come on! That's the only present I ask from you ppl! I'll even give you a cyber Mrs. Fields cookie cake slice from my very own! With frosting puffs!

And of course, it all belongs to the brilliant J.K. Rowling.

Cha, if there's not all that much action in this chapter, it's because I have to get the relationships instigated first, so there should be a good two or three chapters of romancey fluff before we start the real story. And just to tell you, this whole thing came from a dream. My dreams are kinda crazy… especially the one when I was watching my dad in therapy talking about how he shaved his head with a lawnmower… anyway, enough of my psychobabble! Read and review! You'll get a dedication, maybe even a MESSAGE. Le gasp!

Anyway, read:

Chapter 1: Waking Up

Harry Potter lay on his bed. He stared blankly at his ceiling, listening to the happy chatter of his relatives downstairs. Of course they were happy, he wasn't there.

Harry had been in a state of numb grief for two weeks. In those two weeks, he had eaten few meals, perhaps six? He didn't bother remembering. It simply added to the emptiness he felt. Tear tracks had carved their way in to his face; he let them fall without shame. Without recognition. Without realization. He hadn't spoken a word the entire period he spent at the Dursleys'. Every now and then he saw Sirius's face in his mind. Perhaps a tear would fall, perhaps a strangled cry would escape him. Robotically he wrote back to Ron and Hermione's worried letters. Mechanically he assured them he was fine. He endured his pain in silence, but on the first day of the third week…

Something slammed in to Harry's window. Sitting straight up, he automatically let in what seemed to be an almost critically injured Pigwidgeon. He held out his leg without his usual energy, giving a feeble peep of triumph for delivering his letter. Slitting open the letter, he spied an unfamiliar handwriting.

Harry,

I'm going to skip the casualties. We are so worried about you, Harry, and I think we both know that your letters haven't reassured us. So I'm here to tell you what everyone else needs and wants to say:

Sirius—Harry felt as though he had swallowed a bucket of lead at his name--wouldn't have wanted this. When he died, I know he wouldn't have wanted you to hole yourself away from the rest of us, to hole up in yourself. You, of all people, need love desperately. We know how traumatic it is that you lost Sirius so soon, but he wasn't the only one who cared for you. Even though he was a link to your past that none of us could ever be, we've always stuck by you and we _will _always stick by you. Remember that. Hermione and the rest of us want you here and healthy and whole.

I haven't told the rest of them that I'm writing to you. Fred and George will take the mickey out of me if they knew. Please think about what I said, and we'll see you soon.

Ginny

Harry felt something warm slip into his heart where the block of lead had been, and melt it. Something about this letter, about the time and care that was obviously put into it, broke through to him. And it was from Ginny, of all people!

Maybe it was that nobody had told him directly what he needed to hear. Maybe it was that it felt wonderful to hear those words from someone he completely didn't expect. But something made the crucial difference.

And Harry woke up.

* * *

The Dursleys were, unsurprisingly, sour about Harry's return. So the household reverted back to its winning system: they ignored Harry, and he them.

Occasionally, Harry was seized by violent paroxysms of grief, but mostly he remained in a mellow sort of mood. The first smile in a fortnight appeared on his face about four nights after Ginny's letter, because of another one:

Harry-

We're coming to get you tomorrow, we've been asking Dumbledore for ages-ask the Muggles and send your answer back as soon as possible, we'll come and get you either way. We'll pick you up around three, Dad said. Remember to unblock the fireplace this time, though. Oh, and Hermione's here, too, so we'll both see you.

How're you doing? Hermione and I are still worried about you. Oh, and be ready for mass quantities of food, Mum's been cooking since this morning.

-Ron

Harry flew down the stairs in a state of true excitement. By tomorrow he would be at the Burrow!

"Uncle Vernon, could I be allowed to go to my friend Ron Weasley's for the rest of the summer?" Harry asked, breathless after almost running into him.

"Will your godfather be checking up on you?" he asked nervously.

Harry's voice went flat. "No. My godfather's dead."

Uncle Vernon's face took on the most disgusting grin Harry had ever seen. "Then there aren't really any reasons for me to send you down there, are there?"

Harry felt a horrible, black type of fury course through his veins. He compulsively gripped his wand, which he had started keeping in his pocket with him at all times. Taking a few discreet deep breaths, he eyed Uncle Vernon. "No, I suppose there aren't," he managed to hiss before he dashed back to his room. He scribbled his reply back to Ron, his hand shaking so badly he could barely write the words. He told him of his uncle's answer, and that he would be ready by the next day.

The next day, Harry was ready by one-thirty. He shut Hedwig in her cage at two-thirty. By that time he was pacing out of anticipation until Uncle Vernon yelled up at him to knock it off. At two fifty five, Harry went downstairs and sat on the living room couch. Aunt Petunia walked into the room.

"What are you doing here? AAUUGGHH!" she screamed as Mr. Weasley erupted out of the sudden, leaping green flames. Following him were Ron and Hermione.

By this time Uncle Vernon and Dudley had run, or rather waddled, into the living room.

"WHAT IS THIS? WHO ARE YOU? GET OUT OF MY HOUSE!" Ron, Hermione, and Mr. Weasley looked rather taken aback at his hostility. Harry ran upstairs to get his things and thundered back downstairs to find his friends standing in a huddle by the fireplace, looking with disdain at Uncle Vernon. His violent yells now mixed with profanities.

"Um, I'm ready to go," Harry mumbled, embarrassed.

"YOU'RE NOT GOING ANYWHERE!" Uncle Vernon screamed, and lunged for Harry. Harry stepped nimbly out of the way, took a pinch of the offered Floo powder, and quickly went into the fireplace. Ron and Hermione looked as eager to leave as he did.

After a whirl of green fire and various rooms, Harry and his trunk stumbled into the kitchen of the Burrow. Almost immediately he was gathered in the arms of Mrs. Weasley, who started babbling concernedly to him.

"Oh, Harry dear! How _have _you been? We've all been so worried – when was the last time you've eaten something? You're simply a bundle of sticks! How have your relatives–" her nose wrinkled in distaste automatically, but quickly smoothed in an attempt to hide it from him "– been treating you? We've missed you so much!"

Harry smiled at Mrs. Weasley's barrage of questions and waited until she'd finished to answer. "I'm great, Mrs. Weasley. I _have _been eating, there's no need to worry about me. The Muggles have been treating me the same as always, no difference. I've missed you all too, more than you can imagine!" Harry stopped here because none other than Ginny Weasley stood in the doorway of the kitchen. He gave her a slow smile, a secret one, and her beaming grin livened him, in a strange way.

Mrs. Weasley hadn't noticed his abrupt end to the conversation. She bustled around the kitchen. For the first time, Harry took in the immense amount of food that occupied the room: mountains of meat pies, vats of boiling soups, piles of salads and roast potatoes, fish, pastas, newly baked breads, and too many foods to name covered the feeble table, and that wasn't even the beginning of it.

Ron and Hermione stumbled out of the fireplace and greeted Harry more thoroughly. Hermione threw her arms around Harry and said in a choked voice,

"Oh, Harry, how _are _you? Why didn't you write more in your letters? I've been so worried about you!"

"Yeah, mate, we know you haven't been okay," Ron said quietly after slapping him on the back.

"I'm fine, I really am," Harry reassured them with an earnest look. "I guess I just…woke up somehow."

Ginny was truly shining now. This hadn't gone unnoticed by Ron.

"What are you looking so happy about?" Ron said, looking pretty cheery himself.

"Oh, I guess I'm just happy to see that Harry's all right." She said innocently.

"Let me put my things upstairs," Harry said. Ron and Hermione automatically followed. After some small talk, they returned downstairs to find that dinner wouldn't start for about two hours.

"So, what do you want to do, Harry?" Hermione asked him cheerfully. She had been silently evaluating Harry from what he could tell, and seemed satisfied.

"Let's play Quidditch!" he exclaimed. "Where's Ginny?"

Ron looked at him as though he were crazy. "Why?"

"Well, we can't have teams unless it's at least two on two." He replied.

Ron looked at him suspiciously. "Yeah, I guess you're right."

After a few two on two games with a lot of team-rotating, the four teens returned to Mrs. Weasley's newly set up outdoor tables. Harry and Ginny hung back; Ron and Hermione didn't notice.

"I really do appreciate that letter you sent me." Harry murmured to her so that nobody would hear.

"Don't mention it." She smiled up at him, shaking her long red-gold hair out of her face. Harry's heart quivered oddly.

"It was just what I needed, and I was so surprised to see it was from you!" He laughed quietly to himself.

"Why?" she said, taking his hand. "We're friends, right?"

His heart did that quiver again. "Right." He smiled again.

After a leisurely dinner, the four walked back upstairs to their various sleeping places. Harry saw that Hermione was sharing a room with Ginny when they passed her room. Ginny pulled him aside as Ron walked on.

"I have an opinion to share with you," She said to him. "Is it just me, or do those two-" she jerked her thumb into her room and to Ron's retreating back. "-_really_ like each other?" Harry nodded vigorously. "We should probably get them together then, they're so compatible it's ridiculous. I'll tell you my plan tomorrow, I have to get in before Hermione gets suspicious." She hugged Harry briefly, then slipped inside her room.

Harry stood there, frozen for a moment. Once he moved, he found himself, extraordinarily, contemplating Ginny. Her simple sweetness refreshed him, but surely all he felt was a fond sort of brotherly love. After all, she _was _Ron's little sister. Just bringing Ron into his thoughts made Harry remember how angry he was last year when he found out about Ginny's boyfriend. Besides, even thinking of Ginny in a different way was preposterous.

Although, Harry thought as he lay down in the cot at the foot of Ron's bed, he had been thinking of her a lot. He remembered the way his heart felt as he thanked her for her letter. Her letter, one of the most thoughtful things anyone had done for him. He thought of her kind, good-natured face and the way her hair shimmered as she shook it out of the way…

He shook his head. Him, falling for Ginny? He had only seen her one day! The entire idea was crazy.

Preposterous.

A/N: So, what did you think? I already have the second chapter written, luckily. So let's say 7 reviews? I'll settle for five. The second one's a lot better, I promise! Please review! For my birthday?


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